That is a lot of recent doom and gloom for Philly sports fans, but isn't your brother happy about the Philadelphia Union winning the Supporter's Shield?
I'm going to spare everyone my line-by-line response to this whiny woman's complaints, but a couple observations: First, who is it that she supposes would attend the daily meet-the-coach media setups she feels are so crucial? I cannot speak for other teams, but in Columbus you MIGHT get the Dispatch beat writer once in a while, and maybe someone - basically a part timer - from the Massive report stopping by but mostly there's really no demand for this. OF COURSE the NFL teams get scads of guys, because the Bengals, for example, sell papers (or eyeballs, clicks, whatever). MLS not so much. And I'm sorry that having to ask a team PR rep to set up a chat with a player after practice is such a struggle. I'm sure it's much easier to just stroll into the locker room whenever you want and corner a guy when he's pulling his pants on, but too bad so sad. Like a lot of people, this whole closed locker room deal leaves me unexcited. The oldsters here will recall the kerfuffle the Crew had over just this issue when a staunchly Catholic Latino player didn't want to parade around naked in front of a female reporter, who blew the whole incident up into an international scandal and forced the team and league to lay down some discipline. (As an aside, she was an arrogant ass and absolutely loved the attention. Her "poor little abused girl" routine was as phony as a three-dollar bill) Bottom line, I think the teams provide the access that is called for, mostly. Reporters always want more, teams and players always want less. And if she's so hell-bent on accosting a player to ascertain his "feelings" at various points in the game, well, I usually am not.
It's a chicken and egg problem for me. She's exactly right when she says that fans don't feel connected to teams and players, and one way to fix that is to tell more stories, which requires better access. But at the same time, will better access guarantee more fan interest? Not to mention your point above that other than a blogger or two, there isn't exactly an army of reporters waiting to cover MLS teams. It's a sticky wicket.
MLS decided some time ago that it wants to be in control of as much of the messaging surrounding the league as possible. I've said this before, but the extent to which, as fans, we rely on league-paid mouthpieces as our "news" sources is bizarre. Rarely is it news. What we get from MLS is league propaganda and marketing bullshit. Partly, that's due to the modest level of interest in external media to sink resources into covering the league and soccer in general. While there's been some positive movement over the decades, you'd have to have been living under a rock for the past 30 years to not see the flaccid interest MLS generates from traditional sports pages and online sports platforms. Seeing that void, and not seeing any way to affect it, MLS stepped into the void by building out its own news/marketing machine. Which it has a right to do, obviously. Thing is, for all of my many complaints about the league, one of the most damning (for me) is that it's ********ing boring. The quality of play can be less than inspiring, sure. Close to half of the teams make the playoffs, which makes regular season games less critical, sure. But propaganda is boring as hell. Why even pay attention to MLSHQ-generated stories about the Crew? What could I possibly learn from them? We've said it before, but one reason this aged site continues to generate interest and posts is because curious and informed fans come here to bat around ideas, theories and criticism about how the team is doing, what it might do differently, etc. We've been at it so long and have become so used to the lack of anywhere else to go for thoughtful analysis and discussion regarding MLS that I think some of us have lost the ability to recognize the extent to which MLS spoon-feeds its fanbase only what it wants it to see, read and hear.
Quick mixed zone locker room stuff is what gets the most clicks for digital engagement. But its where the most off the cuff comments from players come from. This reporter had her credentials pulled for talking to Lucho behind FCC's back. But it was the most talked about non-Messi thing last year.
Nobody much likes the propaganda that MLS spews, but the alternative, unfortunately,is often nothing at all. Theyre not taking the place of more independent voices, they’re filling dead space. And I dont see how thats necessarily a bad thing
Tied to this topic, Tom Bogert just went back to The Athletic. He tried to make American soccer news a thing at Give Me Sports or whatever that site was called, and I'm gonna go ahead and assume it didn't go as well as he would've liked. He needs The Athletic to subsidize his MLS coverage. As an Athletic subscriber, that's fine with me. To anyone wondering why no one makes a specific MLS/American soccer news site, this is why. The #1 guy couldn't make it work.
The way I read his column today - which is maybe the second piece of writing by Tom I've consumed this calendar year, fwiw - is that the NYT offered him a fat check to come back and cover the World Cup. I won't be shocked at all when he's leaving the Athletic again in 2027.
The athletic let go of 2/4 remaining MLS writers in the last 4 months. This def feels like they bought the biggest name in the industry and let the old vets go. Tom was not just on GiveMeSport, a mostly subscription based service, but he is a frequent pundit on CBS, is on Soccerwise, and limelights elsewhere when asked. I bet when he was let go from the Athletic and left MLS, he planned on waiting it out and doing things on his own to get bigger in the space. Mission accomplished.
My Cousin Bill is. I doubt my brother cares, as he's been living in the ATL for some time now and I doubt has ever seen the Union. I certainly don't care that much--though I would buy an Atoms style throwback if they ever did one (Minnesota did a Kicks style one this year (we had good seats)).
I I mean, how fat do you think that check really is?? I like Tom. I like that he has scoops and breaks news. That being said, his writing isn't exactly spectacular to the point The Athletic HAS to have him.
He was doing CBS stuff when he was at The Athletic before I think. He only did Soccerwise because MLS Extratime bit the dust. I'm not sure he's bigger now than before.
Still the #1 Ohio State message board! I was in college when it was an independent site and they ran a sale for college students: $19.99 for six months if you signed up with a .edu email, renewable for up to four years. I bought a subscription for my dad for Christmas because he was really into the recruiting angle. The guy who started and sold Rivals.com (also somehow still in business!) started another network called 247Sports in 2011, which Bucknuts then joined and in transferring over memberships they permanently grandfathered in my discount. I still pay the $20 twice a year for my dad to go on and read there. Our own Pat Murphy is one of the staff members there.
I will likely subscribe to him despite my issues with his style for this reason. The work is important and deserves to be supported. There are a couple people who cover Ohio politics on Substack who I subscribe to even though I don't read their content regularly and disagree with a lot of what they post. I'd rather have someone covering it and drawing conclusions I wouldn't versus having no one covering it.
extratime and SoccerWise were coexisting and then MLS axed Extratime — probably as a cost cutting measure
I once wrote for 247 during their brief foray into covering minor league baseball (by absorbing the Indians Prospect Insider blog in the case of the Cleveland system)
We have a new president https://www.columbuscrew.com/news/m...olumbus-crew-president-of-business-operations
Guessing returns to his chief of strategy role for HSG. He'll be still involved, I imagine. Right now he is probably focused on getting their army of influencers in line about the new stadium. They are all still fuming online about the prices. Chris might know more, but she seems strictly business/General Counsel type. I do not know if she will have as much of an influence on projects and business strategy. We will see.
Yes, she's a lawyer - a damn good one. And yes, she'll be the strategic leader for all the off-the-field operations like marketing, advertising, in-stadium experience, all of it. Glessing goes back to Berea. Welp. I don't know how I feel about Mary moving into the top job due to previous experience with her as the in house counsel, but I'll withhold judgement until at least Crewsmas. I know she's a "soccer person" but I don't know if she's a Columbus Soccer Person.